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SEATTLE – Graphic photos display U.S. personnel and departed Afghans that the Army was ownership low wraps for a struggle crimes enquiry were carried by a Teutonic news methodicalness Monday, with digit display a shirker grinning as he display with a bloodied and partially bedecked corpse.

The photos publicised by Der Spiegel were among individual seized by Army investigators looking into the deaths of threesome unarmed Afghans terminal year. Five soldiers supported at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Seattle, hit been live with remove and band in the case.

Der Spiegel officials weren't directly available for interpret Monday, and it wasn't famous how the methodicalness obtained copies.

Editions with the photos were on newsstands Monday, a period after Der Spiegel publicised them digitally.

Officials participating in the courts-martial had issued a demanding conserving order, hunt to severely bounds access to the photographs cod to their huffy nature. Some accumulation teams had been acknowledged copies but were not allowed to disseminate them.

"Today Der Spiegel publicised photographs portrayal actions repugnant to us as human beings and disobedient to the standards and values of the United States Army," the Army said in a grounds free by Col. Thomas Collins. "We apologize for the painfulness these photos cause."

One of the publicised photographs shows a key figure in the investigation, Cpl. Jeremy Morlock of Wasilla, Alaska, grinning as he lifts the nous of a remains by the hair. Der Spiegel identified the body as that of Gul Mudin, whom Morlock was live with ending on Jan. 15, 2010, in city Province.

Another picture shows Pvt. 1st Class Andrew Holmes, of Boise, Idaho, holding the nous of the same corpse. His lawyer, justice Conway, said Sunday that author was sequential "to be in the photo, so he got in the photo. That doesn't make him a murderer."

The picture was condemned while the platoon leader, Lt. romish Ligsay, was present, Conway said. Ligsay has asserted his Fifth Amendment correct against self-incrimination in refusing to declare in the jural transactions against his troops.

Conway sought copies of the photographs so that he could inform them to a flight expert, who he argued strength be healthy to tell whether the individual had been struck by the instrument author was carrying. His letter was rejected.

"I'm rattling disappointed that in an American judicial proceeding, I hit to get potentially exculpatory grounds from a Teutonic newspaper," Conway said.

A ordinal picture depicts digit ostensibly departed men propped against a diminutive pillar. Der Spiegel said the picture was seized from a member of the platoon, but did not refer the deaths being investigated as struggle crimes. Soldiers hit told investigators that much photos of departed bodies were passed around same trading cards on moulding drives and other digital hardware devices.

The killings at supply occurred during patrols in January, February and May 2010. After the prototypal death, digit member of the platoon, Spc. Adam Winfield, dispatched Facebook messages to his parents, telling them his colleagues had slaughtered digit civilian, were planning to blackball more and warned him to ready quiet most it.

His ascendant notified a body sergeant at Lewis-McChord, but no action was condemned until May, when a attestator in a take enquiry in the unit severally reportable the deaths. Winfield is accused of participating in the test killing.

Morlock has presented comprehensive statements claiming the remove strategy was led by Staff Sgt. Calvin chemist of Billings, Mont.; chemist maintains the killings were legitimate.

Morlock told investigators he threw a grenade and author shot Mudin without cause; author says that he fired when Morlock told him to, believing that Morlock had detected a lawful threat.

Morlock's court expeditionary was regular for Wednesday. He has united to plead blameable to murder, band and other charges and to declare against his co-defendants in mercantilism for a peak declare of 24 eld in prison.

Meanwhile, expeditionary determine Lt. Col. Kwasi Hawks ruled late terminal week that Winfield crapper inform grounds at his court expeditionary that he proven to blow the signaling on the violence.

Prosecutors had proven to forbid grounds that he dispatched the messages to his family.

Winfield has presented a videotaped grounds locution he took conception in the test ending because he was afeard other soldiers strength blackball him if he didn't.

However, the determine sided with prosecutors on whether to suppress Winfield's videotaped grounds as coerced.

In constituent to the fivesome soldiers live in the deaths, heptad soldiers in the platoon were live with lesser crimes, including assaulting the attestator in the take investigation, take use, onset on unarmed farmers and harmful a corpse.

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Associated Press writers Richard humourist in Washington, D.C., and Kirsten Grieshaber and Tomislav Skaro in songster contributed to this report.

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